Youtube: One Step at a Time
“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets but threw the bad away. Matthew 13:47-48
In the spiritual context, the term enlightenment is often misunderstood. We might think of it as a singular experience, like passing through a door from a dark room to one full of light. There are, of course, cases where this seems to be true, but we don’t always know the facts of a person’s inner life. Their sudden breakthrough may be the result of years of preparation.
Let’s think of enlightenment first as the understanding that we are spiritual beings inhabiting a body in a material environment. To be unenlightened is to live as if we are trapped in a body and material environment. The enlightened approach to life’s events, then, is to consider them from the perspective of a spiritual being with limitless capacity. Rather than feeling trapped, we make mental and emotional choices that are based on the truth of our spiritual capacity.
To live a prayer-centered life is to not only be aware of the choices we are making, but to deliberately make choices that are in keeping with the truth of our spiritual capacity. Prayer is the two-fold process of denial and affirmation: releasing the unwanted reaction and affirming the truth. Jesus compared it to tossing bad fish and keeping the good.
The bad fish is a negative response to an appearance. We do not deny the appearance, but we release the negative energy we give it. We then affirm the truth with a statement something like this: Greater good is now unfolding through this appearance.
This is a spiritually enlightened approach to life’s challenges. We make our mental and emotional choices, not as a reaction to appearances, but based on the truth of our being, one step at a time.